Page 46 - A Little Life: A Novel

somehow justify anything short of rabidity for your career; only here did
you have to apologize for having faith in something other than yourself.
The city often made him feel he was missing something essential, and

that that ignorance would forever doom him to a life at Ortolan. (He had felt
this in college as well, where he knew absolutely that he was the dumbest
person in their class, admitted as a sort of unofficial poor-white-rural-
dweller-oddity affirmative-action representative.) The others, he thought,
sensed this as well, although it seemed to truly bother only JB.
“I don’t know about you sometimes, Willem,” JB once said to him, in a
tone that suggested that what he didn’t know about Willem wasn’t good.

This was late last year, shortly after Merritt, Willem’s former roommate,
had gotten one of the two lead roles in an off-Broadway revival of True
West. The other lead was being played by an actor who had recently starred
in an acclaimed independent film and was enjoying that brief moment of
possessing both downtown credibility and the promise of more mainstream
success. The director (someone Willem had been longing to work with) had

promised he’d cast an unknown as the second lead. And he had: it was just
that the unknown was Merritt and not Willem. The two of them had been
the final contenders for the part.
His friends had been outraged on his behalf. “But Merritt doesn’t even
know how to act!” JB had groaned. “He just stands onstage and sparkles
and thinks that’s enough!” The three of them had started talking about the
last thing they had seen Merritt in—an all-male off-off-Broadway

production of La Traviata set in nineteen-eighties Fire Island (Violetta—
played by Merritt—had been renamed Victor, and he had died of AIDS, not
tuberculosis)—and they all agreed it had been barely watchable.
“Well, he does have a good look,” he’d said, in a weak attempt to defend
his absent former roommate.
“He’s not that good-looking,” Malcolm said, with a vehemence that

surprised all of them.
“Willem, it’ll happen,” Jude consoled him on the way back home after
dinner. “If there’s any justice in the world, it’ll happen. That director’s an
imbecile.” But Jude never blamed Willem for his failings; JB always did.
He wasn’t sure which was less helpful.
He had been grateful for their anger, naturally, but the truth was, he didn’t
think Merritt was as bad as they did. He was certainly no worse than

Willem himself; in fact, he was probably better. Later, he’d told this to JB,